After work on Tuesday night, I joined Anne and Rey at the local sports bar, Mike Duffy’s, to watch the American League Central Division’s tie breaking game.  This was the so called 163rd game of the season.  I wonder if the player’s got paid extra for this game or not?  As you all know by now, what couldn’t be decided in an entire baseball season couldn’t be decided in nine innings either.  Unfortunately the Twins beat the Tigers in the twelfth inning.  Anne and I stayed through the eleventh inning and left Rey there to watch the end of the game and then walk home.  I guess I’ll just have to root for the Cardinals now. 😉

The one time I still remember ever seeing the Tigers play was years ago when I still lived in Michigan.  My friend Cooper and I took Anne and Anne to a weekday day game, at old Tiger Stadium.  The weather was one of those perfect Michigan summer afternoons.  I’m pretty sure that it was both Anne’s first ever major league ballgame.  I forget who the Tigers were playing. Maybe it was the Indians?  The pattern of the game was quickly established and held throughout the course of the game.  We would get a beer, watch the Tiger’s at bat, the Tigers would get some hits and then score some runs, eventually the visitor’s would come up and we would all decamp to the restrooms.  I’m sure we didn’t repeat this pattern every inning.  I’m sure we couldn’t have afforded to do that every inning, but the Tigers sure did.  By the end of the game they had in excess of twenty hits and more than ten runs.  It was a great introduction to Major League baseball.

I was speaking with one of my co-workers who has Cardinal’s season tickets and now also has playoff tickets.  His regular season tickets cost $27, which just happen to be the same price as our bleacher seats for Sunday’s game.  During the divisional playoffs, which start on Wednesday, his Cardinal seats cost $37.  If the Cards make it through that round and on into the next round, then his seat prices rise to $67.  If the Cardinals make it all the way to the World Series, then his seat prices jump to $170.  World Series ticket prices are fixed by the baseball league.  I have the feeling that the league’s price fixing is intended to keep big market ticket prices somewhat affordable.

Here is a prescient postscript courtesy of Jay and the Seattle Mariners.